This is the way it is with the Zone: if you come back with swag - it's a miracle; if you come back alive - it's a success; if the patrol bullets miss you - it's a stroke of luck. And as for anything else - that's fate.

-Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Welcome to the zone. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series is made up of three games as of now, Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat. Each game has its own set of unique experiences and features, and each game has a new twist upon the life of a Stalker.

The game series is based off of the Chernobyl Nuclear catastrophe, with it's own fictional additions. The zone is an irradiated hell hole that was formed after the second explosion at the powerplant, it's filled with anomalies and known to be home to deadly mutants. The zone is populated by scavengers nicknamed S.T.A.L.K.E.R's, which stands for "Scavenger, Trespasser, Adventurer, Loner, Killer, Explorer, Robber". There are also various other factions of stalkers which may be friendly, neutral, or hostile.

This is just a quick overview, for in depth information I recommend to go to the STALKER websites listed below. The Wiki is a bonus that holds extra information but does give away several spoilers.

Doom's Mod is a merge and rebalancing of several SoC mods that replaces the storyline with a freeplay system, allowing the player to spawn as a rookie of any faction, and adds a basic faction war feature similar to that of Clear sky. Plenty of features have also been added such as new anomalies, quests, weapons from LURK 1.1, improved AI, new names for those Stalker Bros, graphical changes and sounds.

The Faction War is a freeplay mod for Clear Sky that gives the player the option of joining one of six factions and conquering zone. Set after the events of CS, it currently lacks a cohesive storyline, but presents a reasonably immersive and fun experience. Adds new weapons, joinable factions, a small xp system, companions, helicopters, and more! Updates are infrequent but big. Become a loner by reaching 1500 xp, before you ask.

SGM is a very large mod which brings a sack of content to the table. Adds in a large list of features (probably too big to list) such as new quests, plenty of new weapons, caches as well as lots of extra stuff. Check it out if you fancy playing Call of Pripyat with much more content added in.

Any way i can get Beard to give me the Missions for getting the Firefly artifact? I have 4 of them and i want to get 24,000 rubles each, not the measily 9600 he offers me if i sell it to him the old fashioned way.

Any way i can get Beard to give me the Missions for getting the Firefly artifact? I have 4 of them and i want to get 24,000 rubles each, not the measily 9600 he offers me if i sell it to him the old fashioned way.

Sleep one hour, check. I'm not sure how often they refresh, but I don't think they refresh upon quicksave/load like trader inventories do.

Any way i can get Beard to give me the Missions for getting the Firefly artifact? I have 4 of them and i want to get 24,000 rubles each, not the measily 9600 he offers me if i sell it to him the old fashioned way.

The artifact demand changes over time. Your best bet is to check back with him every now and then.

Doom's Mod Merge is a merge and rebalancing of several SoC mods that deletes the main storyline and replaces it with a freeplay system, allowing the player to spawn as a rookie of any faction, and adds a faction war feature similar to CS (although much more basic). Adds new anomalies, quests, weapons (LURK 1.1), improved AI, new names, graphical changes and sounds.

Me being the awesome Monolith dude, I figured , I could go deep in enemies territory, kill everyone who's not my bro and looting everything, then selling it, then killing the buyer.

Now, I'm in Garbage, behind this excavator under fire. 13 enemies on radar, shit. Time is 2300 and rain.
Enemy at front knows my position and is alerted. I start shooting with my newly looted AK from the right side.
Still shooting.
And, oh my fucking god, this AK mod uses 7.62x39 ammo. I had only half magazine in inventory. FUCK!
Suddenly, a motherfucking bandit, flanks me from left, USING WAR TACTICS AGAINST ME. Hits me in the back. 10% of life left. In pain, I get the secondary weapon, PB-6P9 - it needs a reload.
Can't be arsed doing that. Took a knife and stabbed him in the face. Bandit was carrying a standard AK. Nice.
Feeling the Monolith brothers are speaking to me. Get on killing spree, shoot on sight, medkit on damage, grenades on masses. MONOLITH AM INVULNERABLE!!

The Faction War is a freeplay mod for Clear Sky that gives the player the option of joining one of six factions and conquering zone. Set after the events of CS, it currently lacks a cohesive storyline, but presents a reasonably immersive and fun experience. Adds new weapons, joinable factions, a small xp system, companions, helicopters, and more! Updates are infrequent but big. Become a loner by reaching 1500 xp, before you ask.

What other famous mods for CS are there?

Checklist wot I can think of for all games:
- People Soup?
- Complete Series? (for the sake of completeness, no pun intended)
- MISERY?
- LURK?
- AMK (Definitely)
- Lost Alpha?